Tony Cummings reports on the Coventry band [DWEEB] and their ever increasing popularity

Tony: Okay, tell me about "Blunt Incision".

Tim: "Blunt Incision" is about apathy. It just came out of something that I noticed which is that in our nation, whether it's to do with politics or also this happens a lot in the Church is that we're very quick to whine about how it is but we're not so quick to actually do something about changing it. I guess this song is saying either 'stop whining' or if you're gonna whine do something about it. Don't just whine and expect someone else to sort it out for you. Do something to make a change about the things that you're passionate about.

Tony: One of my favourites on the album is "Give It A Rest". What is the theme of that song?

Tim: It is about this so called sacred/secular divide and our frustrations with that. In certain circles [dweeb] are slapped with this label of 'Christian music' or 'a Christian rock band'. But we think that we're just a rock band. We write rock music. Christianity is just not a genre of music. Christianity is a whole way of life and beyond. It has to be everything. It's not a genre of music and so we don't think the stuff we sing about, and we sing about God because we are absolutely, totally passionate about God and so therefore that naturally comes through in our songs. We don't think that the content of our songs should define the genre of our song. We're a rock band not a Christian band. We sing about Christ, sure we do, because we're passionate about Jesus. But we're a rock band. And so that song "Give It A Rest" is about that frustration of that labelling which is really, we've found, unhelpful to people who we really want to hear our songs and that's people who don't yet know Jesus.

Tony: Now you've got a single "It's OK" coming out on 12th July. What inspired that song?

Matt: As we've toured around the country over the years we've discovered a general sense of hopelessness in today's culture and society. In some ways it started with our State Of Mind tour last year or the year before - we decided one of the things was to promote the fact that there is hope. "It's OK" talks about that. It talks about the concept of how everyone wants to be with somebody and how society/culture tells you you need to feel okay. But the truth is none of that works and there is something that makes you feel okay and that's all about Jesus.

Tony: But the song doesn't spell it out does it? It doesn't actually name Jesus?

Tim: No it doesn't and nor does any of the album actually. It's not one song that immediately changes people's lives. It's a process about getting to know a band and getting to know what they're about, and that's what we're trying to do. So, we're releasing this single and we want people to buy it. Unashamedly, we want it to be on mainstream radio. The whole thing we're doing behind it is - let's tell everyone that it's okay. As Matt was just saying we believe that no matter how bad it gets, and life does get bad, and life does get hard and sometimes it's just not easy, but we just believe that whatever's going on, whatever circumstances are happening, there's still hope because of Jesus. And so we're saying 'let's tell everybody it's okay'. We want people to download that single from iTunes on 12th July, when it comes out. We want Cross Rhythms to get behind it, we want people to get behind it. People will hear the song on the radio and it'll be a way in for them, it'll be a first point of call. We're talking about the possibility of putting something on our website which says why it's okay and why there's still hope in the direst of circumstances. So just because it doesn't say the word, the name, 'Jesus' doesn't mean that it isn't going to affect people and start people on a journey and a process toward Jesus.

Tony: Tell me a bit about the 'Feels Like Dynamite' recording sessions.

Badgerman: We started recording in December and finished it in January with a little break for Christmas. We recorded it in a little studio in Lewis near Eastbourne called Harvest Hill studios. The studio is owned by Dave Lynch and he and Mark 'Sparky' Underdown produced. We were really pleased by how that collaboration worked. They both had a very different dynamic and brought different things to the table. Sparky is very clued up with what's current and what's around now particularly with the electronic edge. He was really up there with sounds and with helping us to get appropriate sounds on the synths, stuff like that. Dave is just a bit of a recording ninja. He's old school with techniques and stuff. It was really good and both of their knowledge and experience meant for a really quick session. On our last album we worked with Stu Reed and we were really pleased with the outcome of that. The only real reason for change was what we mentioned earlier. We wanted to develop and evolve with a new sound so the obvious choice was a new producer. We'd done a couple of CDs with Stu so it was time to move on. We were happy with the combination.

It was great to see and hear the songs grow and form in front of you. Particularly this time, I think we'd all be in agreement, we've held onto stuff a lot more loosely. A lot of the songs we hadn't really gigged, or if we had they were in a very early stage. Whereas before we were recording 'It Came From Outer Space' most of the songs, we were quite stubborn on their structure and content. This time we held onto things very loosely and were very happy for things to change and lots did. It was great to see things develop. The good parts stood the test of recording and came out the other end and some of the bad parts didn't make it through and were replaced with better ones and so the songs really did improve a lot and were really galvanised by the recording process.

Tony: When Cross Rhythms first wrote about you in 2006 you were all living together in a house on Coventry. Presumably, that's all changed now?

Matt: (Laughing) No, no, no, the four of us have got married but the wives have just moved in. . . No, we all moved out of that wonderful property. We had a great time for a good few years living together but we've all moved out, got married, got mortgages. We are still in Coventry, all living around the corner from each other really but we don't live in the same house together anymore.

Tony: Do you still see any of the Nexus people?